Early Civilizations and Global Tapestry

Early Civilizations (1200 BCE - 2001 CE)

• Paleolithic period ends, climate warms, more arable land.
• Neolithic Revolution: domestication of food, sedentary lifestyle.
• Pastoral nomads raise livestock, migrate, trade with farmers.
• Food surplus leads to specialization (pottery, art, metalwork).
• Bronze Age: bronze tools and weapons become dominant.
• First towns: Catal Huyuk, Jericho.
• Advanced preliterate societies along Indus, Huang He, Nile, Tigris & Euphrates Rivers.
• Six characteristics of civilizations:
  • Advanced cities: population size, trade, administrative, religious centers.
  • Specialized workers: artisans, shopkeepers, soldiers, officials, rulers, priests.
  • Social classes: rulers/priests, nobles, artisans, merchants, farmers, slaves.
  • Complex institutions: government, religion, education, military.
  • Recordkeeping/writing: track events, business transactions, religious rituals.
  • Advanced technology: monumental architecture, art, public works, new tools (wheeled vehicles, potter's wheel, irrigation).
• Women's status generally declined in patriarchal systems.
• Deforestation, erosion, selective extinction due to agriculture.
• Advantages of agriculture: steady food, larger populations, organized societies.
• Costs of agriculture: dependence on crops, disease, reduced mobility.

River Valley Civilizations

• First civilizations began in river valleys (Fertile Crescent).
• Sumer:
  • First civilization in Fertile Crescent.
  • Hammurabi's Code: justice and retaliation.
  • Cuneiform: first writing.
  • Inventions: wheel, sails, plows, bronze metalwork.
• Ancient Egypt:
  • Nile River: fertile soil, predictable floods.
  • Pharaohs: king-gods.
  • Hieroglyphics: picture writing.
  • 365-day calendar, geometry, pyramids.
• China:
  • Limited arable land.
  • Dynasties (Mandate of Heaven).
  • Confucianism: filial piety.
  • Grand Canal connects Yellow and Yangtze rivers
• Indus River Valley:
  • Modern India and Pakistan.
  • Grid system, citadel.
  • Caste system.
  • Undeciphered written system.
  • Advanced plumbing, standard bricks.

The Americas

• Paleo-Indians, Clovis people (identified by spear points).
• Hunter-gatherers, then farming.
• Domestication of maize (corn).
• Olmec: earliest civilization, earthen temple mounds, earliest American writing.

East Asia (1200-1450)

• Sung Dynasty (960-1279):
  • Expanded government positions, civil service exams (based on Confucianism).
  • Taken over by Mongols.
• Tang Dynasty promoted infrastructure, trade, technology.
• Grand Canal: internal waterway.
• Champa rice: fast-ripening, increases food production.
• Proto-industrialization: home-based production.
• China: most commercialized society.
• Inventions: magnetic compass, junk ship, gunpowder.
• Tax and tribute system.
• Tribute states: Japan, Korea, Vietnam.
• Religious diversity: Confucianism, Legalism, Daoism, Buddhism, Neo-Confucianism.
• Sinification: taking on Chinese ideas (Japan, Korea).
• Japan: competition between landowners, samurai (knights).
• Korea: direct relationship with China, adopted Chinese writing, Confucianism, Buddhism.
• Vietnam: tribute state, resisted sinification.

Islam

• Founder: Muhammad.
• Spreads by conquest and trade.
• Jizya: tax for non-Muslims.
• Umayyad Dynasty: led expansions.
• Abbasid Caliphate: educational advancements, Arabic versions of Greek writings, Sufis (mystical Islam).
• Slaves allowed if non-Muslim.

India

• Gupta Dynasty (Golden Age), destination on silk roads, fell due to Huns invasion.
• Chola Kingdom: major player in Indian Ocean trade.
• Indian Ocean Trade: fabrics, cotton, steel, leather, spices.
• West-coast Indian cities: trade centers.
• Delhi Sultanate: Islamic control in Northern India, Jizya tax.
• Differences between Islam and Hinduism create resentment.
• Sufis: bring Islam to Southeast Asia, Bhakti Movement: Hinduism movement.
• Indian number system and Algebra and Geometry got translated into Arabic.
• Srivijaya Kingdom (670-1025)
• The Majapahit Kingdom (1293-1520)
• The Sinhala Dynasties

Southeast Asia

• Khmer Empire: irrigation and drainage.
• Sukhothai Kingdom: forced Khmers out.

Americas (Pre-Columbian)

• Olmec: first civilization, beans, squash, avocados, basalt heads, calendar.
• Moche: corn, beans, llamas, jewelry.
• Mississippian culture: large-scale, Eastern U.S., earthen mounds, animists.
• Chaco and Mesa Verde: stone and clay housing.
• Teotihuacan: large city, obsidian export.
• Mayans: slash and burn agriculture, city-states, human sacrifices, accurate calendar, decline due to overpopulation.
• Aztecs: Tenochtitlan capital, tribute system, theocracy, polytheistic, 365-day calendar, fell to Hernan Cortez.
• Inca: four provinces, mandatory public service, agriculture-based economy, terrace farming, Temple to the Sun.

Sub-Saharan Africa

• Slavery: sign of social status, Arab traders sought women and men.
• Zanj Rebellion: against Abasiid Caliphate.
• Animism, polytheism.
• Quipu: knotted lines for recording.
• Carpa Nan: road system.
• Hausa Kingdom: kinship groups, trans-Saharan trade.
• Trans-Saharan Trade Route - the Saharan desert of Northern Africa forms a geographic barrier, majority of stuff goes to the Mediterranean, huge caravans, up to 5000 camels, slaves came mostly from South, most sold in North Africa, South had crops, gold, ivory, kola nuts, and slaves. The north had manufactured goods, salt, horses, cloth, and dates.
• Ghana and Mali Kingdoms expanded due to Islam.
• Timbuktu: education center.
• Mansa Musa: richest guy in history, makes the economy plummet in Cairo
• Great Zimbabwe: stone dwellings, overgrazing led to abandonment.
• Swahili city-states: trade centers.
• Ethiopia: Axum kept Christianity.
• Social structures: women in agriculture, patriarchal communities.
• Types of slavery: debt bondage, domestic, chattel.
• Griots: storytellers.
• S.P.I.C.E. - Social, Political, Interaction, Cultural, Economic (can add T for technology)

Medieval Europe

• Fall of Roman Empire leads to Dark Ages (500-1000 CE).
• High Middle Ages (1000-1450 CE).
• Manorial system: lords and vassals.
• Development of Romance languages.
• Feudalism develops, monarchs gained power.
• Norman England: Magna Carta, English Parliament.

The Crusades

• Series of attempts by European Christians to retake the Holy Land.
  • First Crusade (1096-1099): capture of Jerusalem.
  • Second Crusade (1147-1149): Crusader states established, then lost.
  • Third Crusade: Richard negotiates access to Jerusalem.
  • Fourth Crusade: sack of Constantinople.
  • Children’s Crusade
• Effects of the Crusades:
  • Discover medical stuff of how to treat wounds
  • Silk is introduced to European soldiers
  • Ideas
  • Development of more Italian port cities
  • Growth of trade centers
  • Civilians didn’t live on Feudal Manors for protection anymore, europe’s economy switched from land-based to money-based, increased the power and wealth of monarchs, magna carta, feudalism decline
  • Gunpowder weaponry, plate armor and helmets, courier pigeons, shipbuilding, travel
  • People became less trusting of church power and motives, the spread of ideas increased the demand for education, universities were established, Vernacular language written for literature, new ideas spurred the renaissance
  • Persecution and segregation of Jews, development of three strong nation states– Spain, England, and France, art and architecture (gothic style and religious based), Byzantine Empire falls and Muslims take Constantinople
  • Plague brought by rats on trade ships it’s the fleas on them, learned knowledge beyond western Europe, it united western Europe
• Social structures were based more on economics, a little ice-age hit around 1300 for 500 years
• Guilds: an association of craftspeople or merchants, kept a degree of quality control and organized hierarchy
• Urban areas were dirty, unsanitary, and overcrowded with no planning done at all